Monthly Archives: June 2013

Found this little getaway down in Florida. Maybe this is where I am now, on my internet-free vacation….

Hint: see how that one sign says “free WiFi”?

St. Petersburg, Florida
photographed 10.29.2010

Travel = good! Travel with no internet = I’m a little nervous. If you want to comment on this post, please do. I promise that once the internet and I are on speaking terms again, I will get back to you. (I think we’ll be back together on July 7.)

Another day of prowling the archives, and I found this, from a trip to England a few years ago.

It wasn’t the grandeur of the cathedral that caught my eye (though it certainly is grand), nor the beautiful music we heard (it was very nice), nor the vast amount of history associated with the place (the building was saved by a deep-sea diver?!)

My memory maintains that this bank of windows faced west, catching the late-afternoon sun. That may be true.

It is equally likely that they faced north and the glow is reflected light from a tall building nearby.

Most of the time I have a good sense of direction. There are a few places, though, where I always get lost. San Antonio, Texas: I can get lost walking around the block. Espanola, New Mexico: pretty sure I will end up permanently circling that place one of these days, looking for the highway to Abiququ. And Boston: I never knew WHERE I was, other than “in Boston.” And even that might not have been accurate, because I sure could have been in Charlestown or Cambridge or…

Boston, Massachusetts
photographed 8.31.2010

Also: I am going on a bit of a vacation. To someplace without much internet access. The posts will continue, and please leave comments. I will answer them as I can, and promise to get to all of them sooner or later. The internet and I will reconvene on July 7.

When I am wandering around in my archive, looking for something to post, I generally ignore anything with sun flares. Other photographers do cool things with them, but I almost never get anything that looks like the flares are there for a reason (other than, you know, pointing the camera at the sun.)

This shot, of an old roadside store, caught my attention. And I don’t even know why.

I am still not too much a fan of the flares, but I make up for it by how much I like the dappled light on the floor.

And, to head off on a completely random tangent, this tiny town in the Texas Panhandle has a very interesting history. During World War II, there was a prisoner of war camp, housing Italian prisoners, in a nearby town; seven of these prisoners painted decorative designs on the interior of St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Umbarger. Here’s a story about it on National Public Radio. The church has recently had the paintings restored, and if you make arrangements in advance, some of the members of the church can meet you there and show you around.